Abstract Given the popularity of PMO and international projects, and the difficulties experienced by PMO, it is important and necessary to study PMO in a global context. This paper raises a challenge for a PMO who uses traditional approaches to supervise international projects characterized with external embeddedness. Would such a character demand this PMO be operated differently to adapt to environment? In searching for the answers, we use case study method, which enables us to gain a deep understanding of the impacts of external embeddedness on the efficacy of PMO’s control mechanism. The results show that a PMO should open its control loop to external network and promote procedural justice in managing international projects. By expanding upon the existing PMO research to include an adaptive control approach for managing international projects, this research would advance our knowledge of PMOs and may help us decode some of PMOs’ difficulties.